The music philosophical and music critical work of Adorno is made accessible through the publication of Volume 18 of his collected writings. Chronologically, they range from Adorno's youth— the earliest dating back to 1922, when he was 19 years old— to just before his death in 1969. While the works differ greatly in terms of literary form: aphorisms stand alongside critiques and reviews; radio lectures next to analyses of individual compositions; encyclopedia articles next to monographic treatises— they simultaneously document the unity of the philosophical consciousness from which Adorno's thinking about music emerged almost from the very beginning. Central to Adorno's music philosophy is the endeavor for a theory of new music.